


We Could Live Like This

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, The Academy Is...
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	We Could Live Like This

Mike picks up his guitar at three in the afternoon and doesn't put it down until midnight, and even with breaks in there to go to the bathroom and throw paper at each other and argue about everything, that is a long fucking time. He can't quite uncurl his fret hand.

"You need to ice it," Bill says, in his know-it-all voice, his nasal Chicago honk that Mike doesn't miss until he hears it again.

"I don't think I even have ice." He works his fingers slowly, wincing, and Bill rolls his eyes.

"Idiot."

Mike would flip him off, but it hurts, and anyway Bill's sauntering off into the kitchen. He comes back with two cold bottles, hoisting them over his head triumphantly and then sliding one into Mike's curled hand before he drops to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, settling in front of Mike and leaning back against his legs.

"Knew you were the brains of this operation." Mike closes his eyes and lets the cold sink into his hand, willing it to reach all the way down to the bones. He takes a drink and bumps his knee against the center of Bill's back. "Good stuff today."

"Awesome stuff." Bill tilts his head back and smiles, upside down and crooked. "We're on fire, Santi."

"Don't jinx it."

"I'll knock on wood, or turn around three times and spit, or something. Just as soon as I finish my beer." Bill laughs a little, like he's a lot funnier than he is, and Mike rolls his eyes. He turns the neck of the bottle between his fingers, dragging the cold, sweaty glass against the back of Bill's neck.

"You fucker." Bill ducks forward and squirms like a kid, raising the hand holding his own beer in defense and flailing the other one blindly. "That's cheating."

"We're not playing anything."

"It's still cheating. Universal rules of...thing."

"Idiot." There's no sting in the word; it's easy, meaningless, stripped of its venom by time and familiarity. Mike remembers screaming fights, words backed by anger and white heat, shoving each other back against the bus and punching each other in the stomach to make points that didn't even matter _then_ , much less now.

He's not sure what it would take to get him that mad these days. Mellowing out is fucking weird. He'd call it growing up, but he still plays his guitar for a living, so that's never going to count.

He rubs his knuckles against the back of Bill's neck, where the skin is still cold. Bill leans back into him, humming vaguely against the mouth of his own bottle. Mike slides his hand up to Bill's hairline and down to his collar, feeling the bumps of his spine go by.

He remembers sitting and drinking like this a dozen or fifty other times, the same glow of satisfaction, the buzzing edge of making songs. He remembers sitting and drinking pissed-off and hurting, too. Sad. Too mad to talk. Too exhausted to move.

It's little things. Dumb little things. He picks at the collar of Bill's shirt, worrying the cloth between his fingertips, and Bill tilts his head again, looking up at him with a faint smile.

"Mike." His voice is warm and stupid-happy, content. Like he wants Mike to join him in being that way.

Mike shrugs and takes another drink, his thumb rubbing slowly over the swell of vertebrae. Bill closes his eyes.

It's as easy to lose track of time to this, closeness and silence and light, slow touching, as it was to the music. The beer runs out and his hand still aches but he doesn't want to move. He slides his hand down Bill's back, following his spine down as low as he can reach from that angle, which is still high enough that he can feel Bill's heartbeat. So fucking skinny. Mike can almost feel the lines of his ribs through his t-shirt.

"If you tickle me, I'll bite you," Bill says, then tips his bottle up to catch the last few drops. "Just in the interest of full disclosure."

"Thanks for the tip." Mike pulls his hand away and settles back on the couch, flexing his aching fingers slowly and looking up at the ceiling. The couch shifts under him as Bill climbs up and sits down, and Mike closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the cushions.

"You need to crash?" Bill's crazy long fingers tap out a rhythm on Mike's knee, and he pulls his leg away. "I'll carry you to your bed. Like a gentleman. I won't even try to molest you."

"Should I be flattered or insulted?"

"I try to treat my guitarists like ladies."

"Since when?"

"You and Chiz are totally ladies."

Mike shakes his head and swats Bill's hand away again. "I don't even know what to do with you sometimes, dude."

"We do okay." Bill is persistent; stubborn actually, which comes in handy in a lot of ways and is a pain in the ass in others. Mike has a tendency to give in, after a while. Like now, when Bill's hand settles on his leg a third time, higher now, heavy and determined. Instead of trying to shake him off, Mike takes a breath, turns his head, and opens his eyes.

Bill is looking at him, mouth twisted in a little smile and eyes dark. Mike licks his lips, and part of him wants to shake his head, but not enough to win out. He doesn't move as Bill leans in, slow and easy.

Kissing is something else that goes way back, all the way to the beginning. Drunk and sloppy, aggressive and angry, exhausted and looking for something they never tried to put in words. Mike remembers having bruises and bite marks all over his own skin, and leaving matching ones on Bill's, blunt fingertip traces in pale blue and kiss-shaped swelling punctuated by teeth.

 _It doesn't mean anything_ , Bill would say at first, wide-eyed behind his stupid hair and his cheekbones that stood out too sharp, too much. _It's just the effects of a homosocial environment._ Quoting whatever armchair psych 101 he'd been reading while they drove, picked up God knows where and lost again some drunk night when all personal belongings were subject to sacrifice.

And then later, he didn't say that anymore, he said _it doesn't mean anything, it's just us_ , instead, shrugging shoulders that were also too sharp, closing his eyes and pushing Mike down on his back, straddling his hips and leaning in to cover his mouth with kisses that tasted like whiskey and something missing.

And then it was different again, and different another way after that, but it's always the same. Always like this, the ways that matter. Bill's teeth catching Mike's lip and Bill's tongue sliding against Mike's and the funny little hitch in Bill's breath when Mike starts kissing back.

He slides his hands up and down Bill's back again, this time aware of the muscles as well as the bones, thinking about the history under the skin, carried in the body. They're probably not actually old enough, either of them, to feel that way, but if they didn't believe they had stories to tell, they would be in some entirely different business.

Bill's teeth catch Mike's lip again, just hard enough to sting, and Mike pulls back, looking up at him. Bill licks his lips and cocks his head a little, glancing down the hall to the bedroom and then back to Mike. Mike flexes his hand and nods, but doesn't move right away, just watches as Bill walks away. The thought that crosses his mind is that Bill moves like a dancer, which he knows is patently wrong as someone who has actually _seen_ Bill attempt to dance both drunk and sober. But he carries his body like a dancer, aware of himself at every minute, able to instantly compose himself into lines and angles if anyone's looking.

Always performing. When Mike wants to put his hands on him, it's always to make him stop, to just _be_.

"Mike. Come on."

He switches off the lamp before he follows Bill down the hall, leaving everything eerie and half-lit by the safety lights outside. They leave the bedroom washed out in electric better-than-moonlight, stark and unforgiving. It turns Bill pale as a ghost as he tugs off his shirt and drops it to the floor.

Mike's own shirt has buttons, which take a little more attention. When he looks up again Bill is stripped to his briefs and watching him with a crooked smirk.

"Clothes are so complicated," he says solemnly. "If you're five. Do you need some help?"

"We can't all be exhibitionists like you."

"You weren't even watching." Mike rolls his eyes and shoves his jeans down, and Bill laughs, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Exasperation and impatience, very sexy."

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" It's halfhearted bitching at very best, losing any sting it might have kept because he's hopping around trying to get his jeans off where they're caught on his toes. Bill laughs and falls backward on the bed.

"Wow."

"Shut up."

"I'm so turned on, I don't know what to do with myself."

"Shut _up_." Mike finally gets free of the jeans and crosses over to the bed, bracing himself over Bill and glaring at him as best he can. "You are my least favorite friend."

"Oh, come on."

"I like you least of all, out of everyone I know."

"I'm not buying it." Bill draws his fingers down Mike's chest. "Now, are you here to talk or are you here to--"

Mike kisses him mostly to shut up him, but also because now that he’s here, he doesn't want to wait anymore. Bill shifts under him on the bed, all bony and wiry and incapable of holding still even for a minute. His hand slides down Mike's body to the waistband of his boxers and then back up, wandering over his torso light and teasing and intensely distracting. Mike doesn't have a choice but to grab his wrists and pin them on the bed, leaning down with just enough pressure to make Bill groan.

"Hold still," Mike mutters, and kisses him again, stopping the _make me_ that they both know Bill would spit back if he could. Predictable, familiar, like the tension in Bill's body under his and the heat growing in the pit of his stomach the longer they go on.

Bill gets one of his legs wrapped around the back of Mike's and uses the leverage to arch up against him. "Come on," he says against Mike's mouth. "Come on, do something."

"Stop talking." Mike lets go of Bill's wrists and works one hand down between them, fumbling Bill's underwear out of the way and then his own. He pushes two fingers of the other hand into Bill's mouth, thrusting them shallowly and taking a rough breath as Bill starts to suck on them tight and hot. "Fuck." He palms Bill's cock roughly and then wraps his hand around it, finding a rhythm that makes Bill's eyes close and his head tilt back.

He thrusts his fingers a little deeper, not quite enough to gag him but close, watching Bill's face as he's torn between the two sensations. Mike doesn't really know how his skills at giving handjobs rank on an objective scale, but he knows Bill's responses, knows when to speed up or back off depending on if he wants to tease him.

Tonight he doesn't, because his hand still hurts and he's kind of tired from playing the guitar and arguing about chord changes for nine fucking hours. So he strokes a little faster, a little tighter, and Bill groans low and muffled, hips rolling up in a helpless rhythm. Mike shifts against him, thrusting down against his own hand and Bill's body, finding the same rhythm and the right friction to make his own breath catch. He turns his hand, sliding his palm roughly against the head of his dick to catch the moisture there and then strokes both of them together, making Bill moan again.

And then Bill bites Mike's fingers, because he is an asshole. Mike hisses but obediently pulls his hand away, bracing it next to Bill's head and kissing him roughly instead until Bill turns his head to the side, draws a ragged breath, and comes. The sudden heat and wet makes Mike shudder and move his hand so he's just gripping himself, stroking tighter and faster.

Bill's hands slide lazily along Mike's back, down over his ass and the backs of his thighs. Mike closes his eyes, panting hot against Bill's neck, smelling his skin and sweat and the junk he puts in his hair, close enough that he can feel the pulse pounding. It's close and warm and familiar and then Bill shifts underneath him, his fingers digging into Mike's hips just a little, just enough that it sends Mike over the edge.

It takes a minute before he catches his breath and then Mike eases away and wipes his hand on his boxers, frowning at the red marks on the fingers of his other hand. "Don't bite me. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Don't choke me, then."

"I didn't _choke_ you."

"I couldn't breathe."

Mike grins despite himself, shaking his head. Typical. Bill always has to win. "Least favorite. Bottom of the list."

Bill rolls his eyes and reaches for him, grabbing Mike's shoulder and shoving him down on the bed, throwing his arm across his chest. He clings like a monkey, a bony monkey with ridiculous hair. And Mike lets him. "Whatever," Bill says. "Go to sleep. We've got work to do tomorrow."  



End file.
